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A Study On The Reform Of The WTO Decision-making Mechanism

Posted on:2017-06-08Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y ZhongFull Text:PDF
GTID:1316330512951158Subject:International Law
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As the institutional core of the global trade governance,the World Trade Organization(the WTO)functions and achieves its goals by not only keeping the current rules effective,but also creating new rules.The decision-making mechanism,therefore,is crucial to keeping the WTO alive.As the globalization goes deep,the rules or the decisions of the WTO tend to reach the matters that fall into the sovereignty category under the traditional international law theory.It thus raises the concerns of legitimacy of the WTO,which has reflected in the severe anti-WTO and anti-globalization protests during the late 1990 s and early 21 stcentury.Joint by the impasse of the Doha Round,all these issues indicate that the decision-making mechanism of the WTO seems to be off track and needs to be renovated.This dissertation regards the internal and external asymmetries created by the current decision-making mechanism undermine the legitimacy of the WTO.Accordingly,it takes careful consideration of the constitutionalizing theory,the parliamentary mechanism,public participation mechanism and principles of the multilateral trading negotiation based on the analysis of the legitimacy theory.It aims to deliver a feasible reform scheme for the WTO decision-making mechanism.This paper starts with a comprehensive analysis of the existing mechanism.Although the WTO sets up the formal decision-making system,the negotiations still largely take place informally under the principle of member-driven.Such practice creates the disorder of powers,which further weakens the role of formal arrangements.More importantly,the informal practice brings the internal and external asymmetries to the table.On the one hand,the internal asymmetry refers to the informal decision-making practice that features no-record,undemocratic and nontransparent Club model adopted by the GATT.It hardly build up the required consensus as the rise of developing countries and thus restrict the contribution that the WTO can made to the development of international law.On the other hand,the external asymmetry refers to the situation where the public have the minimum participation in the WTO decision-making process,which makes it more difficult to deal with cross-field issues that contains multi-actors,multi-roles and multiplevalues conflicts.Chapter 3 discovers that the internal and external asymmetries are signs of the lack of legitimacy.Therefore,the reform of the WTO decision-making mechanism should aims to enhance its legitimacy.As Max Webber explained,entities gain their legitimacy by acquiring public recognition and trust through the empirical perspective.Additionally,scholars who hold normative perspective shed light on the individual-nation state-international organization legitimacy chain.Keeping and strengthening the effective mutual connections between the actors along the chain also contribute to the legitimacy building of the WTO.This paper suggests that a systematic interactive framework will benefit the WTO in gaining the support from the public.There are two theories that can lead the road.The good governance thesis tends to build up an international normative framework so that the WTO can promote values and rules beyond its text to realize orderly governance.The other one is effective thesis which tries to base the reform on the past experience and lessons with the aim to enforce the goals explicated in the WTO agreements.A progressive approach may reduce the uncertainty in the reform.While this paper inclines to take the progressive approach,the good governance thesis is enlightening.The study of the constitutionalization of the WTO is important in this field.Chapter 4,however,reveals that scholars do not reach a common understanding towards the concepts and contents of constitutionalization.Many existing viewpoints are based on the irrational beliefs of the connections between normative arrangements and legitimacy or transcendental knowledge.The existing studies show that members need to give up more powers under traditional sovereignty category to fulfill constitutionalization,which is hard to accept for many members at this stage.Accordingly,this paper finds the trading democracy approach raised by Deborah Z.Cass is more feasible at this point.While the normative value of constitutionalization is acknowledged,this paper proposes that the reform should aim to realize the democratic and fair participation of the members in decision-making and to promote the realization of the goal of the WTO,as well as to set up the rights of participation and supervision for the public,which directly focuses on gaining the recognition and trust of the public.Only through this pattern would the legitimacy crisis of the WTO be solved.Chapter 5 gives attention to the internal issues of the WTO decision-making mechanism.This paper suggests that the principle of consensus and single undertaking,which are regarded as the cornerstone of the WTO,lead to the internal asymmetry.If the nature of the WTO decision-making stays unchanged,i.e.a contract through diplomatic negotiation among members,the proposal to reform may not be aggressive.The core of the proposal is to build up a appropriate procedure to produce the green room participants democratically based on the variable geometry theory,as well as to set up a steering group in the sam manner.Meanwhile,the WTO should loose up the constrains of the principle of undertaking,and employ multilateral agreements to handle issues with diversification of interests.Chapter 6 suggests that the WTO over-emphasizes the principle of member-driven,and the public participation is thus restricted.Considering the reality of the international politics and the practibility of the reform,the distinction between the public having the right to participate in the decision-making process and their actual influence on the decision should be noted.While the WTO can take action to involve more audience in the decision-making process,their actual influence on the decision may still be limited.However,it does not suggest that the WTO should do nothing.It implies that there is much room for the WTO to enhance the right of the public to gain information about the decision-making,and strengthen the communication and mutual connections between the WTO and the public.Chapter 7 discusses the parliamentary oversight mechanism.Such mechanism allows an entity to disclose its decision-making information to the public and receive their feedback through a parliamentary institution.It aims to enhance accountability and legitimacy.It is commonly acknowledged that setting up a world parliament is not practical.Nonetheless,a weakened version such as the current Parliamentary Conference in the WTO does not effectively function as expected.Although it still helps to enhance the legitimacy of the WTO as it does develop a new channel to connect with the voice of the public,its function is restrained by the divergence of the members and it is hard to achieve further breakthrough.To conclude,in order to achieve legitimacy,the WTO can make more efforts on public participation and fade out the principle of consensus and single undertaking,which is more practical.The reform is deemed to be a long one.
Keywords/Search Tags:WTO, Decision-making Mechanism, Legitimacy, Internal Asymmetry, External Asymmetry
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